Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Anniversary ... Of a sort

Just over four years ago I decided to put the - not insignificant energy - required into getting a website - www.artperth.com - that focussed on the local arts community off the ground. This has been through a few manifestations but has settled a bit over the last year or two. The site now includes close to 80 galleries and over 200 artists on it's 'books', all of which are from Perth and regional Western Australia.

The key purposes of this was an attempt to engage with the 'industry' as we were/are struggling to get a foothold let alone any tangible response from it. Financially it's - as you'd expect - ridiculously underfunded but proportionally speaking it is more cost effective - PR-wise - than putting on a show. Ie. $4,000 to get 10 odd people to look at my work by putting on a show vs xyz effort with minimal third party costs to put together the site for broader 'brand' recognition.

The problem I have - as many I imagine - with exhibiting is it is difficult to get any response from the industry. I can't drag the Mysterious Few to shows and, even if they do turn up, equally can't force them to like my work.

I freely admit that at the time - 2007 - I was feeling particularly jaded by the apathy we were experiencing so it was a Costneresque decision to build something in the hope that they 'would come'.

Lately I've been daydreaming of 'doing' my own gallery but I almost find that tragic. Not to belittle the qualities of artists who do this but I feel it's close to admitting defeat.